Twentieth Century:
Introduction:
– Diversity
– More
Characteristics: Harmony
Chord: Two or more notes at the same time
Triad: a three-note chord built in thirds
Fourth Chord: a chord built in fourths instead of thirds
Tone Cluster: a chord made up entirely of half-steps or whole-steps
Polychord: two or more chords at the same time
Polytonality: two different keys at the same time
Characteristics: Rhythm
Rhythm: the most striking element in 20th century music
irregular meters: uneven beats ***
syncopation: accents the weak beat
polyrhythm: two or more different rhythms at the same time.
Melody: the tune
– Is melody necessary for it to be music?
– Characteristics:
Musical Tastes Change
before 1900, new music
after 1900, old or traditional music
Impressionism:
Impressionism seeks to recreate the impression left on the senses
French Painters:
– Claude Monet:
• Impressions, Sunrise
– Auguste Renoir
– Impressions, Sunrise by Monet
Claude Debussy
French Musician
Impressionist Composer
Paris Conservatory
Prix de Rome
First to use harmony for its sound rather than function
Influences
Javanese Gamelon
Tchaikovsky
Wagner
Prélude à “L’après-midi d’un faune”
Inverted flute melody
chromatic and whole tone scales
horn, oboe, harp timbre
metamorphosis of melody
ambiguous rhythm and tonality
Claude Debussy
1862-1918
– died of cancer
– during German shelling of Paris
– three weeks before end of WWI
20th Century Styles
Neoclassicism
Neoprimitivism
Expressionism
Neoclassicism
modeled after Bach
Neobaroque???
Neoprimitivism
emphasises primitive, driving rhythms
Igor Stravinsky
St. Petersburg, Russia
Rimsky-Korsakov
University of St. Petersburg
Law Degree
Igor Stravinsky, the refugee
WWI - Switzerland
1920 - French Citizen
1904 - U. S. Citizen
Hollywood, California
Igor Stravinsky
Picasso:
Igor Stravinsky, Music
All styles:
Symphonies
Opera
Jazz
Cantatas
12-tone
Igor Stravinsky, Ballets
The Firebird
Petrushka
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
Riotous Premier
Plot: Prehistoric Siberia
Costumes and Choreography:
Neoprimitivism: Polychords, syncopation, and dissonance.
Expressionism
Seeks to express powerful, violent emotions.
The Scream by Edvard Munch
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg: Life
Vienna, Austria
self taught
developed 12-tone
Prussian Academy of the Arts, Berlin -“Schoenberg should be locked in an insane asylum without
music paper.”
Arnold Schoenberg
Fled to U.S.
U.S.C.
UCLA
It may take some time for my music to catch on.
A Survivor from Warsaw
12-tone: uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale equally
Sprechstimme: the rhythms are precisely notated, but the pitches are approximate
Written in German, English and Hebrew
Bela Bartok
Hungarian nationalist
Ethnomusicology: study of folk music
avid folksong collector
Bela Bartok
Concerto for Orchestra, Mvt. II
“Game of Pairs”
for Koussevitzky of Boston
Hungarian peasant music influence
Charles Ives
Danbury, CT
“Pa taught me what I know”
Yale - Business Major
Ives & Myrick Insurance Agency
retired as a multi-millionaire
Charles Ives
Three Places in New England
“Putnam’s Camp, Danbury, CT”
Quotes: Yankee Doodle, Dixie, British Grenadiers, Columbia Gem of the Ocean
Polyrhythms, polychords
“Unconventional, yet rooted in folk and popular music”
Charles Ives
Pulitzer Prize for Third Symphony
“Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair.”
Aaron Copland
Brooklyn, NY (1900-1990)
Paris Conservatory
American jazz
Nadia Boulanger
People’s Composer
Fanfare for the Common Man
Aaron Copland: Ballets
Billy the Kid
Rodeo
Appalachian Spring
Pulitzer Prize
George Gershwin
Manhattan, NY (1898-1937)
Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra
An American in Paris, Symphonic Poem
Porgy and Bess, Opera
Leonard Bernstein
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Director of the New York Philharmonic
Musicals
West Side Story
Blending of popular and classical styles
William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Mississippi, Arkansas, Ohio, New York .
W. C. Handy
Chadwick & Varese
W. G. Still - Career
Afro-American Symphony (1931)
Performed by the Rochester Philharmonic
Guggenheim Fellowship (193)
Conducted Los Angeles Symphony (1936)
Troubled Island (199)
Performed by the New York City Opera
A Bayou Legend (191) Broadcast 1981
Afro-American Symphony (1931)
Mvt. III – “Humor”
“Hallelujah” motif
Syncopation
Blues scale
The Avante Guarde
John Cage (1912-1992)
Chance music
’33”
Silence
The music is made up of unintentional sounds.
“My purpose is to eliminate purpose.”
Edgard Varese (1883-1965)
Poème eléctronique
Composed for the Philips Radio Corp.
1958 Brussel’s World’s Fair
Liberation of sound
Electronic music
25 loudspeakers
8 minute loop
Philip Glass (b. 1937)
Studied with
Nadia Boulanger
Ravi Shankar
Minimalist
Einstein on the Beach
Jazz Styles
Ragtime
Blues
Dixieland
Swing
Jazz Styles
Bebop
Third Stream
Free Jazz
Jazz Rock Fusion
Ragtime
Scott Joplin - King of Ragtime
Piano Sheet Music
Ragged Time - Syncopation
Maple Leaf Rag
Scott Joplin House - St. Louis
Take Jefferson Street exit off
Blues
Bessie Smith - Empress of the Blues
12 Bar Blues - standard 12 measure form of the blues
Improvisation - making up the melody while performing
Blues
Call and Response - a leader presents a melody which is echoed by someone else
Lost Your Head Blues
Dixieland
New Orleans Style
King Oliver
Dippermouth Blues
group improvisation
Louis Armstrong
Hotter than Hot
group improvisation
scat singing - jazz singing on nonsense syllables
Swing 1930s & 190s
Big bands Count Basie
Duke Ellington
C Jam Blues
You can take the A train
Swing
Benny Goodman - clarinetist
King of Swing
Blue Skies by Irving Berlin
written out charts
Accent beats 2 &
Benny Goodman
Bebop
Kansas City Style - complex, hard driving style, played without charts, meant for the performers
more than the audience
Charlie “Bird” Parker - Sax
Koko
Jazz After WWII
Cool Jazz
Third Stream - a fusion of classical and jazz (Take Five)
Free Jazz
Jazz Rock Fusion
Rock and Roll
Alan Freed coined the term
Rhythm and Blues - Precursor to Rock ‘n Roll
Rhythm and Blues - Black
Chuck Berry
Little Richard
accent beats 1 & 3
XXX (caution, graphic)
Rhythm and Blues - White
Bill Haley and the Comets
Jerry Lee Lewis
Elvis Presley
Elvis
Tupelo, Mississippi
Sun Records
Col. Thomas Parker - “A white man who sounded like a black man.”
1st #1 Hit - Heartbreak Hotel
British Invasion
The Beatles
The Who
The Rolling Stones
Meet the Beatles
Conspiracy?
The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Concept Album: unified theme
“Paul is Dead” conspiracy
Nonwestern Music
Oral tradition
Improvisation
Vocal
Instruments
Nonwestern Instruments
membranophones: stretched membrane
chordophones: stretched string
aerophones: air column
idiophone: instrument is the sound generator
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ompeh
Drums - membranophone
Polyrhythms
Call and response
Talking Drum
India
Karnatak
South India
Hinduism
Hindustani
North India
Moslem
India - Elements
Tala - rhythm pattern
Raga - precise melody form
Drone - continuous pitch
India - Instruments
Tabla - double-headed drum, plays the tala
Sitar - lute, plays the raga
Tambura - three-string lute, plays the drone
India – Instruments
Ravi Shankar
Hindustani or North Indian Music
Sitar, tabla, tambura
Raga, tala, drone
Japan
Koto - 13 string zither